Reader's Digest Laughter is the Best Medicine: All Time Favorites

A hilarious collection of the funniest family-friendly jokes, quotes, stories, cartoons, and anecdotes from the past 100 years of Reader’s Digest magazine.  A little chuckle every day will keep the doctor away.

Editors have mined the Reader’s Digest archives to bring you Laughter Is the Best Medicine, All-Time Favorites, a collection of the most hilarious jokes and anecdotes we’ve come across over the years. As you turn the pages of our newest collection, you’ll realize once again that laughter is always the best medicine.

• If evolution really works, how come mothers have only two hands? –Milton Berle
• The game card said: “Name three wars.”  My teenage daughter’s response: “Civil War, Revolutionary War, and Star Wars.”
• Keep your temper. Nobody wants it. –Dearborn Independent
• Check out this billion-dollar idea. A smoke detector that shuts off when you yell, “I’m just cooking!”
• Anthropologists have discovered a 50-million-year-old human skull with three perfectly preserved teeth intact.  They're not sure, but they think it may be the remains of the very first hockey player. –Jay Leno

This collection of laugh-out-loud, clean jokes, one-liners, and other lighthearted glimpses of life—drawn from Reader’s Digest magazine’s most popular humor columns—is sure to tickle the funny bone. Packed with cartoons, quotes, quips, and stories contributed by professional comedians, joke writers, and readers of the magazine, this side-splitting compilation pokes fun at the facts and foibles of daily routines, illustrating that life is often funnier than fiction.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trusted Media Brands
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781621455974

Book preview

Cover: Reader's Digest Laughter is the Best Medicine: All Time Favorites, edited by Reader's Digest

Reader’s Digest Laughter is the Best Medicine

All Time Favorites

The Funniest Jokes, Stories, and Cartoons from 100 Years of Reader’s Digest

Reader's Digest Laughter is the Best Medicine: All Time Favorites, edited by Reader's Digest, Trusted Media Brands

Contents

A Note from the Editors

LIVING OUR BEST (FUNNIEST) LIFE

WORKING 9 TO 5

FAMILY FIRST

DUMBING DOWN

AGING GRACEFULLY

MODERN LOVE

HUMOR IN UNIFORM

FUNNY FURRY FRIENDS

SAY WHAT?

LOL

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS

It might seem hard to be funny for 100 years, but that’s just what Reader’s Digest has done since we first started sharing vhumorous stories back when we began publishing in 1922. Since then, our readers have shared their favorite funny moments through their contributions to Life in These United States, Laughter the Best Medicine, All in a Day’s Work, and Humor in Uniform. These columns have provided balance to the magazine by showcasing just how amusing, comical, and laugh-out-loud funny everyday experiences can be.

Whether we are befuddled by the complexities of modern life, amused by an interaction with a coworker or a boss, chuckling over family foibles, or gobsmacked by the stupidity of our fellow humans, we come together to laugh at ourselves and with one another.

Sometimes we poke fun at the aging process to make it feel a little less daunting; maybe we joke about dating and relationships to take the sting out when they get hard or go awry. Even our military men and women share humorous stories of their time in service to our country, so that we might all find common ground. We laugh at the antics of animals and realize they aren’t so different from us; we recognize the hilarity of a misunderstood word or a mixed-up communication; and we certainly know when something just bowls us over and makes us roll on the floor laughing.

In this volume you’ll find the all-time favorites that we’ve discovered as we combed through the archives, all the way back to our beginnings. While some of the topics that made us laugh in the 1920s may feel a little dated now, the idea of sharing jokes and funny stories has been a hallmark of the magazine all along, and it continues to this day. Ultimately, readers share and enjoy what is funny about the human condition in all of its absurdity and authenticity.

Not only have we highlighted reader contributions, but we’ve also curated our favorite humorous quotable quotes, cartoons, and hilarious stories by famous writers that have appeared in the magazine. In Bit by the Fitbit, David Sedaris warns of our lives being taken over by technology; in 65 Million Women Want My Husband, the legendary Erma Bombeck tries to put some romance back in her marriage, with hilarious results; and in A Moment with Mandy, James Thurber becomes entrapped by an eight-year-old in a battle of wits, and barely emerges with his ego intact. These are just a few of the stories that have appeared in the magazine over the years, and we’ve brought them back because they have stood the test of time and continue to make us laugh all over again.

We hope that you’ll treasure these jokes, cartoons, quotes, and stories as much as we do, and that you’ll want to share our all-time favorites with your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers and maybe even the stranger on the train.

One hundred years later, we still believe that laughter is the best medicine, and we are thrilled to share this sidesplitting volume with you.

—EDITORS OF READER’S DIGEST

LIVING OUR BEST (FUNNIEST) LIFE

The first Sunday after my husband and I bought a new car, we parked it in the last row of the church lot, not wanting to be ostentatious. While talking with friends, my husband, Byron, accidentally hit the panic button on his electronic key. Immediately our car’s horn blared and its lights flashed.

Watching Byron fumble with the button, his friend teased, Wouldn’t it have been in better taste to put a few lines in the church bulletin?

— DONA A. MOWRY

I got stuck in a traffic jam while commuting into Los Angeles one day. The woman in the SUV in front of me took full advantage of the slowdown. She whipped out her eyebrow pencil, lip gloss, and a mirror, applying the finishing touches on her face in the ten minutes it took us to creep through the Cahuenga Pass.

Finally, the traffic broke up and as she zoomed away, I caught a glimpse of her vehicle’s license plate: NTRL BTY.

— CHRIS DURMICK

Internet Humor

The most uncomfortable moment in my day is the time spent waiting in silence while someone searches for a funny YouTube clip I *need* to see.

— @EVAN_HADFIELD

When someone starts a Facebook post with There are no words… you’d better get prepared because you’re about to read a lot of words.

— @JOSIEVORENKAMP

Yelp is a fun game where you try to guess between whether a restaurant is bad or a reviewer is crazy.

— @MIKEDRUCKER

To err is human; to point it out with glee is Internet.

— @APARNAPKIN (APARNA NANCHERLA)

My husband can’t activate our Amazon Echo, because he keeps forgetting its name, Alexa.

Just think of the car Lexus and add an ‘A’ at either end, I suggested. The next time he wanted to use our new toy, he looked a bit puzzled. Then he remembered what I’d said and confidently called out, Acura!

— LINDA PRICE

A few weeks back, I went to the hardware store and bought an ax to use on an overgrown shrub. I put the ax in a bag and went a few doors down to the grocery store, where I bought two bottles of wine. As the clerk placed the wine in the bag, he spotted the ax. This, he said, has all the makings of a very interesting weekend.

—LYLE BREWER

Service in the restaurant was abysmally slow. My husband was starting to flip out, so I tried to distract him with small talk.

You know, I said, our friend Christi should be having her baby anytime now.

Really? my husband snapped. She wasn’t even pregnant when we walked in here.

— MAUREEN MORRISON

I love the self-checkout aisle at my supermarket. The only problem comes when I leave an item on the scanner too long and the robo-voice scolds, Please move your whole milk [or whatever] to the bagging area. Ordinarily, I just ignore it. But on my last shopping trip, I moved fast when the voice began shouting, Please move your pork butt.

— LARRY MORETZ

I was visiting a friend who could not find her cordless phone. After several minutes of searching, her young daughter said, You know what they should invent? A phone that stays connected to its base so it never gets lost.

— MIRIAM SKOW

When I stepped on the scale at my doctor’s office, I was surprised to see that I weighed 144 pounds. Why don’t you just take off that last four? I joked to the nurse’s aide as she made a notation on my chart. A few moments later, my doctor came in and flipped through the chart.

I see you’ve lost weight, he said. You’re down to 14 pounds.

— RACHEL WAGNER

During a visit to the ladies’ room, my friend Addy heard the woman in the next stall suddenly ask, So how are you?

Startled, Addy replied tentatively, Fine.

The woman then continued, So what’s new?

Still confused, Addy said, Not much. What’s new with you? It was then that the woman snapped, Do you mind? I’m on the phone.

— MARION SPARER

Sitting at the kitchen table, I idly picked up a pack of cards and laid out a hand of solitaire, a game that I hadn’t played in quite a while. My ten-year-old son came by and stopped to admire what I had done.

Wow! Zackary said. You know how to play that without a computer!

— SARAH NEVILLE

Friends and I were chatting over dinner in a restaurant. A man at the next table told his cell phone caller to hold on. Then he stepped outside to talk.

When he returned, I said, That was very thoughtful.

I had no choice, he said to me. You were making too much noise.

— NORM BLUMENTHAL

Having avoided the scale for a few years, my husband finally got up the nerve to climb aboard. Unable to read the numbers, he got off to grab his eyeglasses and stepped back on.

What do you know? he called out. These glasses weigh fifty pounds.

— ERMA TIMPSON

A solar-powered computer wristwatch, which is programmed to tell the time and date for 125 years, has a guarantee—for two years.

— DAILY MIRROR

A wife texts her husband on a frosty winter’s morning:

Windows frozen! Her husband texts back, Pour lukewarm water over it. Five minutes later comes her reply: Computer completely messed up now.

— CATHERINE HISCOX

I discovered a shortcut today. If you put your Fitbit in the dryer, you can get a head start on your steps. I had 3,800 steps in before I put on my pants!

— KATRINA HIGHTOWER

As a professor at Texas A&M, I taught during the day and did research at night. I would usually take a break around 9 p.m., however, calling up the strategy game Warcraft on the Internet and playing with an online team.

One night I was paired with a veteran of the game who was a master strategist. With him at the helm, our troops crushed opponent after opponent, and after six games we were undefeated. Suddenly, my fearless leader informed me his mom wanted him to go to bed.

How old are you? I typed.

Twelve, he replied. How old are you?

Feeling my face redden, I answered, Eight.

— TODD SAYRE, PH.D.

My family has a tradition of naming the cruise control on our cars. We were used to hearing my father proclaim Take it, Max, as he flipped on the cruise control during long trips in our station wagon.

Recently, I was traveling with my parents in their new car when we hit a wide-open expanse of highway. My dad leaned back and said, I think I’ll let Tom drive for a while.

Tom who? I asked.

My mother translated for me: Tom Cruise, of course.

— DANA MARGULIES

After my wife and I had navigated through a website for 20 minutes, a talking image of a woman popped up to offer help. At last, my wife said, a real person.

— VINCENT PALOZA

My friend is notorious for waiting until the needle is on empty before filling his gas tank. Finally his car died on him, and we had to push it to the nearest filling station. After my friend finished pumping gas, the attendant asked if he had learned anything.

Yeah, my friend muttered, I learned I have a 15-gallon tank.

— EDWARD HYATT

I’d like the window that says Are you sure you want to do this? OK/Cancel to pop up less often on my computer and more in my real life.

— @AARONFULLERTON

I was showing my kids an old rotary phone when my nine-year-old asked, How did you text on it? My 15-year-old daughter roared with laughter, until a thought occurred to her: Wait, where did you store your contacts?

— TARA PRICE

I recently bought a new car that had a faulty light. When, after five visits to the dealer’s shop, they were unable to fix it, I tried to get it replaced by threatening to use my state’s lemon laws. My calls and letters to the dealer got me nowhere.

I went to a florist, ordered a fruit basket filled with lemons, and sent it to the dealer with this poem:

"When I drive my lemon, I’ll be thinking of you.

Pretty soon, my attorney will too.

A short time later the dealer called and asked what color I’d like my new car to be.

— JOHN T. CARROLL

BIT BY THE FITBIT

An innocent fitness fad turns into a seductive exercise in world domination.

By David Sedaris

Iwas at an Italian restaurant with a woman named Lesley. As she reached for an olive, I noticed a rubber bracelet on her left wrist. Is that a watch? I asked.

No, she told me. It’s a Fitbit. You sync it with your computer, and it tracks your physical activity.

I leaned closer, and as she tapped the thickest part of it, a number of glowing dots rose to the surface and danced back and forth. It’s like a pedometer, she continued. But updated, and better. The goal is to take 10,000 steps per day, and once you do, it vibrates.

I forked some salami into my mouth. Hard?

No, she said. It’s just a tingle.

A few weeks later, I bought a Fitbit of my own and discovered what she was talking about. Ten thousand steps, I learned, amounts to a little more than four miles for someone my size—five feet five inches. It sounds like a lot, but you can cover that distance in the course of an average day without even trying, especially if you have stairs in your house and a steady flow of people who regularly knock, wanting you to accept a package or give them directions or just listen patiently as they talk about birds, which happens from time to time when I’m home.

I was traveling myself when I got my Fitbit, and because the tingle feels so good, not just as a sensation but also as a mark of accomplishment, I began pacing the airport rather than doing what I normally do, which is sit in the waiting area, wondering which of the many people around me will die first, and of what. I also started taking the stairs instead of the escalator